Lissa does Star Trek

“I like this ship! It’s exciting!”

The Scoop: 2009 PG-13, directed by J.J. Abrams and starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban

Tagline: The future begins.

Summary Capsule: Star Trek gets a reboot/prequel/sequel of sorts… but it’s all good (mostly).

Lissa’s Rating: You know, it was really funny watching Heroes while Zachary Quinto was filming this and noticing that his real eyebrows had been shaved off and the ones he had on were fake.

Lissa’s Review: I have to confess, I have never been a Star Trek fan.  It’s not so much the franchise itself, it was the lack of opportunity.  When I was a kid, my parents weren’t into it at all, and it never really crossed my sphere of knowledge.  By the time I was old enough to have a better idea of what was on TV, I was in college and not watching much anyway.  And by then the mythology was so deep, it seemed like this giant, impenetrable fortress of geekdom.

Of course, I knew something about Trek.  Doesn’t everyone?  I’ll bet most Americans could at least tell you that there were characters named Kirk and Spock, and there was some sort of spaceship, and someone said “live long and prosper” while doing that weird thing with their hands.  I could also tell you that there was Uhura, Bones, Scotty, and Sulu (Chekov seemed to always fly under my radar), and I do remember seeing Star Trek IV in theaters.  And I love the Futurama episode where the Star Trek actors’ heads get kidnapped by Melvar and forced to participate in something resembling a convention.

That said, I am a geek.  When I saw the shiny lights and pretty special effects in the trailer, I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted to see this movie, and I wanted to see it bad.

God bless my parents, who babysat.

So, for those of you who are Star Trek noobs like myself?  Fear not and hie thee to a theater — you don’t need to know a darn thing about the universe.  Would you get some of the jokes and references better if you know more?  I’d say there were people laughing in the theater when I wasn’t, but those same people were laughing at a really dumb trailer, so I’m not convinced they knew any more than I did.  But yes, you would get more references and intricacies if you knew more about the universe, I’m sure.  But not knowing a thing won’t stop you from having a darn good time.

So, there’s this guy, George Kirk, and he gets put in charge of this starship.  And he saves lives and it gets blown up literally seconds after his baby is born.  He names the baby and then goes on to a terrible, painful, explosive death.  And his kid, James (eventually played by Chris Pike), grows up to be a total brat.  Across the galaxy, a little half-Vulcan boy named Spock is getting picked on by Vulcan bullies (which is really sort of funny in its way, and while I’m on the subject, WOW could that kid pull of a young Zachary Quinto.  That’s one of the best “this is this actor as a kid!” casting decisions I’ve ever seen).  So, Spock and Kirk both end up at the Starfleet Academy, and they hate each other on sight.  Of course, this leads to wacky adventures.

It’s really a fun, awesome movie, although the time travel aspect makes my head hurt like always.  As a movie itself, I really have very little negative to say about it.   I got exactly what I (as a non-Trekker) wanted: awesome effects, minimal cheesiness, a good story, snappy dialogue, and the creation of a fantastic universe.  But if you’ve read even one review of Star Trek already, you knew this.

There was one thing that caught me by surprise, though, and that was how much I laughed during this movie.  It really was funny.  I think my surprise comes from the genre.  As anyone who reads this site knows, I’m a Battlestar Galactica girl.  Battlestar Galactica took an old, occasionally (okay, VERY) cheesy TV show and updated it, making it more realistic and gritty.  It didn’t just update it — it turned it on its head until there was hardly anything left in common with the original.  I think a part of me was expecting that from the Star Trek movie.  However, this is NOT a reimaging in the sense that Battlestar Galactica was.  Which has its perks and its drawbacks, but at least it means that the Star Trek movie does NOT become the game of “let’s see how much we can torture these characters and how positively MISERABLE we can make them!”  The effects are updated.  The dialogue is updated.  There are fingerprints of the twenty first century all over it.  But the spirit remains largely the same, and the new Trek movie is NOT a depressive emo fest that would make a junior high creative writer envious of how much tragedy can be heaped on a single character.

The other thing I wanted to take up valuable bandwidth to address was the issue of Uhura.  Can I just say how much I adored her?  But let me go into detail.

Scifi and fantasy are old boys’ schools in a lot of ways.  People have long believed that only men like scifi, and so strong, interesting female characters have historically been rarities.  And of those men that like scifi, Hollywood has unfailingly seemed to believe that most of them are white.  Finding good characters of non-Caucasian origin can be… well, about as difficult as finding good, strong female characters.

The original Star Trek had a female character, and a black character.  And lo and behold, they combined them into one and basically made her a glorified telephone operator in a short skirt.  Now, we all know it’s not that simple.  Star Trek did actually have an Asian character in Sulu, and the original Uhura did have some good moments (although again, I’m not a Trekker enough to know what they are- I just have been told they existed), and you need a communications officer on any ship.  (I’ll refrain from pointing out that Battlestar Galactica ALSO had a black female as a communications officer, and even on the Pegasus, Hoshi was originally scripted as a woman.)  But anyway.  The original Star Trek made steps forward, but by today’s standards, not big enough.

I’ve seen rants about how that it was sexist (and racist, but more about the sexist) not to remedy that.  Uhura remained the sole woman in the core crew, she still wore short skirts, and she retained her original duties, and she had a love interest.  Well, yeah.  But the thing is, that’s what Uhura was, minus the short skirt.  (More on that in a bit.)  She is the communications officer, she does speak languages (and does it well, darn it), and she is the sole woman in the core crew.  Hi, this is Star Trek, okay?  But I don’t see how her role is any less heroic or flashy or whatever than Scotty, Chekov, or Bones.  Sure, she doesn’t get fight scenes, but neither do those guys.  Sure, she’s got a love interest, but while Kirk would reduce her to a pretty face, the movie clearly shows us that Uhura is a lot more than that, and Kirk’s kind of a jerk for even thinking it.  Uhura’s a character in her own right, and she’s a pretty awesome one at that.

As far as the miniskirt goes, well, yes.  I can’t ever see any normal woman wanting to enter combat in a skirt that flashes their underwear if they lean over wrong and high heeled boots.  But like I said earlier, this isn’t the kind of update that Battlestar Galactica was.  These are essentially meant to be the same characters as those we know from the original series, and it is essentially meant to be the same universe.  And in that universe, women wore short skirts as their uniforms.  Like it or not, that’s what the iconic Uhura wore, and therefore that’s what Zoe Saldana must wear.  This is especially true as the men’s uniforms were also the same, even if they could have stood an update as well.

Yeah, I spend too much time on the Internet.  What else is new?  But hey, that’s what makes sites like this fun — the ranting about the details the rest of the world doesn’t much care about.

So, yeah.  I loved it.  I can’t speak for the Trekkers too well, but if you like action, space, or hot people on space ships, this one is worth every penny.  Nice and tight and well crafted, and completely and utterly enjoyable.

(And as for MY PS — spoiler, by the way — notice how Spock ended up being a dirty old man?  “Hey!  We can be in two places at once.  YOU go be on the Enterprise, I’LL go repopulate the Vulcan race.  Hehehe.”)

Want a second opinion? Check out Justin’s review of Star Trek!

'There are some things in life that are just fact; and one of those facts is that every odd-numbered Star Trek movies is s**t. ...Wait, what movie am I in?'

Didja Notice?

• The eyes of the alien doctor who delivers Kirk? Freaky!

• Hehe… Chekov can’t say his V’s in this timeline either
• Is that fold-up sword Starfleet issue?
• Vulcans have six billion people on their home planet, yet they’ve established no colonies before this point? That’s… odd.
• The groan-worthy Nokia product placement
• Green girls go for Kirk, 9 times out of 10
• Um, what is “red matter” and why do you never, ever explain it, other than it makes black holes and we have twenty kilograms of it in a lightly shielded chamber?
• So… what DID Nero do for those 25 years other than just hang around?
• Uhura’s first name
• The tribble on Scotty’s desk
• Christopher Doohan, the son of the late James Doohan (Scotty from the original series), appears alongside the new Scotty, Simon Pegg, in the transporter room.
• The little nod to Star Trek: Enterprise (Archer and his beagle)
• In the scene where Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru test, he is eating an apple, which is also what he is eating while recounting his tale of taking the Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

Intermission!

The idea of a young James T. Kirk and young Spock meeting at the Academy was considered as early as 1968, announced by Gene Roddenberry at the World Science Fiction Convention.

The “Trek” movie with the longest hiatus to date since the last motion picture (7 years). Of the now 11 films, this is the most expensive “Star Trek” film by far ($140 million).

This is Leonard Nimoy’s first live-action film role since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

Majel Barrett, the wife of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, has a role in this film as the voice of the Enterprise computer. She completed filming two weeks before her death on December 18, 2008.

Spoiler alert – The Enterprise is, at the time, the brand-new flagship of Starfleet. And they just let a cadet jump from a pre-ensign rank to full-fledged captain on the basis of one really good mission? Buh?

Another spoiler – Is it just me, or does the Spock/Uhura hookup seem to be there solely to provide ‘shippers something to squeal over? They never explain why it happened or give the relationship any depth beyond a bit of smooching (which, coming from Spock, is profoundly disturbing).

Final spoiler – will Future Spock be equally free to distribute future technology to this past timeline as he did with the transporters? And what does that mean to this universe?

Groovy Quotes

Scotty: I like this ship! It’s exciting!

McCoy: Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.

Sarek: [to Spock] You will always be a child of two worlds, and fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose?

Spock: Are you a member of Starfleet?
Scotty: Uh, yes. Can I get a towel?

McCoy: We’ve got no Captain and no First Officer to replace him.
Kirk: Yeah, we do.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Star Trek IV

• Star Trek II
• Galaxy Quest